Quotes from Elias Canetti

A crowd exists so long as it has an unattained goal.

Disgust at collective killing is of very recent date and should not be over-estimated. Today everyone takes part in public executions through the newspapers. Like everything else, however, it is more comfortable than it was. We sit peacefully at home and, out of a hundred details, can choose those to linger over which offer a special thrill. We only applaud when everything is over and there is no feeling of guilty connivance to spoil our pleasure.

It is not, however, only the word, it is also the thing, in all its infinite complexity, that he [Kafka] articulates with unrivaled courage and clarity. For, since he fears power in any form, since the real aim of his life is to withdraw from it, in whatever form it may appear, he detects it, identifies it, names it, and creates figures of it in every instance where others would accept it as being nothing out of the ordinary.

The fingers of the attacker feel what will soon belong to his whole body.

The touch to which one resigns oneself because all resistance appears hopeless — and particularly so as regards the future — has, in our society, become the arrest . The feel of the hand of authority on his shoulder is usually enough to make a man give himself up without having to be actually seized. He cowers and goes quietly.

Gli occhi molto belli sono insostenibili, bisogna guardarli sempre, ci si affoga dentro, ci si perde, non si sa più dove si è

The hallucinations of alcoholics provide us with an opportunity to study crowds as they appear in the minds of individuals.

I've nothing, am nothing, shall be nothing, and yet I take nothing.

Se muere con demasiada facilidad. Morir deberÃ

Abbandonarsi ai propri pensieri per un'ora, ogni giorno, senza scopo: basta questo per rimanere qualcosa che somigli a un uomo

Romani su klinovi koje neki glumac što piše zabija u ?vrstu li?nost svojih ?italaca. Što bol?e prora?una klin i otpor, to ?e ta li?nost ostati raspolu?enija. Trebalo bi da država zabrani romane.

Since the death of his daughter, a consumptive, he had not thrashed a woman; he lived alone.